Posted on 08/17/2005 3:43:35 PM PDT by nicollo
Asking freepers for advice: 1970s & cars... what's it mean?
I'm researching for an article that will be the final of a series of four on "Motoring in Tough Times," on automobiles and economic trouble. We started with WWI and the 1920 depression, went from there to the 1930s, on to WWII & its aftermath, and now heading into the 1970s. The articles are being published by the best automotive and automotive history magazine out there, a hard-bound quarterly, which you will know if you know it.
I go to Freepers for advice because the 1970s marks such a complicated, wild moment in history that we have yet to understand, and that is yet is playing out upon us. In that it's so recent, as history goes, it's difficult to separate it from the present tense. I'll do my best, anyway.
Some topics are:
Vietnam, Interstates, Nixon, Muscle Cars, NASCAR, Gas Crisis, OPEC, Small cars, Pimp mobiles, UAW, EPA, NHTSA, Ralph Nader, Jimmy Carter, Bugs, Honda, Ferrari, Really Bad Colors, Stagflation, Front Wheel Drive, & etc.
We're screwed.
Jimmy Carter has all the answers in a free market economy. /sarcasm
Could you ask some actual questions?
Nixon used price controls to try and keep the price of oil down.
It only created shortages and long lines.
What happened in the rest of the world? Prices went up, but there were no shortages because there we no price controls.
Okay, here's a suggested topic for you: "How the American EPA Killed the British Automobile Industry."
Thanks, brbethke. Here's where I'm heading:
What I discovered from the first three articles is that politics do matter: the bad times don't exist unto themselves, they come from somewhere, and things affect them one way or another, good and bad. Coming out of WWI, for example, the Wilson economic policies were disastrous upon the automobile industry. Or, FDR set in place not only Big Labor but the Big Three, which prior to the 1930s had not existed, or was not a set deal. (This observation, btw, goes against much of the established history on entry/exit and the growth of the automobile industry; I do not believe that the Big Three came about as a pre-ordained affair, as most economists treat it.) Studying WWII I was stunned to find that in his hyperactive anti-inflation measures Truman really screwed the auto industry and furthered the supremacy of the Big Three and Big Labor.
My questions are simple: what happened during the 1970s, and why? ....lol! The period is complicated: politics, economics, social trends all converged upon the automobile in a period of turbulence and change. I've got 3,000 words to figure it out...! I'll be pouring through the contemporaneous publications. What I'm interested in from Freepers is some direction, what to look for and why.
Here are two questions, brbethke: Did the small car triumph in the 1970s, or did the government just want it to? And what did consumers really want, and did Detroit give it to them?
... please say.
Gremlin, Pinto, and Pacer were the answer.... what was the question?
What'd Detroit do about it, if anything?
OPEC Embargo played a small role as well.
LOL!
(Unfortunately those answers will play heavily in the article... Thanks!)
Oh, as for Gremlin and Pacer, those were AMC products, which, aside from Jeep, were the final gasps of the last homemade competition to the Big Three. Clearly the consumer was not satisfied with what was being offered. Too bad, though, that domestic politics/economics killed any competition. Imports filled in. And off we go...
Try a search on the United Auto Worker's Union.
"Gremlin, Pinto, and Pacer were the answer.... what was the question"?
Hey, don't forget about my POS Vega!!! ;-)
LLS
...and to get to the embargo we have to go to the '73 War, and the Cold War, and, and...
Would you say that the embargo played a defining role in the period? That is, without it, would autos have gone the way they did? Or, and if so, was the reaction to it the greater factor, as mc6809e suggests?
Sure, but price controls greatly increased the severity of that embargo by making it uneconomical to pump a lot of oil in the USA. When the government says that oil will be priced at no more than $20/barrel, and you make money when you pump at $25/barrel, then you cap your well -- and that's right when demand for that oil is great.
Did the UAW do anything different in the 1970s from before, or did it all fall upon Detroit when the competition finally got fierce? I'm inclined to see the '70s as an effect as much as a cause in this regard.
One thing I'm having trouble nailing down is quality control issues from Detroit. It's hard to find the origin, and while it truly manifested itself in the 1980s, it certainly came of the 70s. For all his hyperbole, Ralph Nader was on to something in the arrogance of Detroit towards its consumers. That said, the car Nader went after, the Corvair, was innovative and a direct reply to consumer demand. GM from its origins through to the 1960s was truly customer-oriented. For example, in the 1930s, GM President Alfred Sloan wanted nothing to do with safety glass, but he quickly changed course when he realized it was a core consumer demand. Indeed, the company's rise in the 1920s that Sloan presided over was built entirely on meeting customer preferences.
Where did the Unions come into this? In the Seventies?
The oil shocks had a lot to do with the downfall of the big cars, though. The big gas guzzlers looked like dinosaurs lined up at the pump.
The general decline in quality also helped. If big cars were really well-built -- as people believed Mercedes and BMWs were -- people would have remained loyal to them, but if the big whales were poorly engineered and unreliable, then smaller cars made sense.
Detroit was slow to adapt to the fuel economy or safety, so foreign companies which thought small, influenced the market more than people could have predicted before the oil shocks of the 1970s. Perhaps, a more responsive American industry could have retained control and weathered the storm better.
Maybe the two car family had something to do with it. If you bought a second car in the Seventies, chances are it would be something small and economical. It was probably more likely to be foreign as well. Add those second car sales to compact purchases by young people buying their first cheap car and it must have meant a big rise in compact sales.
People's hearts may have stayed with the big cars, but in an age of high gas prices it made sense to make their second car a little one. If they liked it enough, they'd eventually trade the whale in for a minnow.
You could look at the other end as well: Why did SUV's become so popular in the Nineties? Laxer government fuel standards had something to do with it. So did soccer moms wanting a bigger family vehicle. The supposed greater safety of SUV's also had something to do with it. But if you told people in the eighties what their family car would look like ten years later they wouldn't have believed you.
Many were trying to push small cars in the early '60's. The Chevy II, Tempest, Falcon and and Valiant and Duster were tries at econocars by the US manufacturers.
We would have nothing of it. The Nova SS, Camaro SS, The GTO, Mustang Cobra, Roadrunner and Super Bee grew out of these econo boxes.
The gas shortages of the '70's killed the Muscle Car mania, for a while. Many still hold these cars dear, the value they still hold proves it.
Now, US manufacturers are trying to bring back the GTO. But, many feel they are just a shadow of the past glories.
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